Understand
by Storm Princess
Summary: Chibi fic. Splinter is tired of Leo and Raph’s arguments, so he tries to get them to understand each other more. Not as easy as it might seem.


**Understand**

"Shut up!"

"I don't have to shut up, I'm right and you're wrong as usual, so you shut up!"

"No, you!"

"You!"

"You triple times infinity!"

"You triple times infinity plus one!"

Splinter was, to be put bluntly, more then a little tempted to tell his sons to shut up. Not his two younger ones, they were currently sitting peaceably on the couch watching _The Simpsons_; a stark contrast to the two older turtles who were _still _arguing on some matter. The rat had hoped that they would work it out among themselves, but after a full half an hour he was starting to lose that confidence.

He sighed and entered the living room, coming to stand behind the bickering six year old turtles.

"That has got to be one of the dumbest things I've heard, LeoNERDo! Ask anybody, they'd agree with me!"

"No, **me**!"

"My sons!"

The two turtles spun to face their Sensei; they hadn't even noticed he was behind them. "I do not wish to know the reason that you are having such a heated argument, but I must ask that you either find a quieter way to solve it, or drop it altogether. You are disturbing my meditation, as well as showing a lack of consideration for your younger brothers." His tone was low enough, but he had a dangerous glint in his eye that served to warn his sons not to mess with him. Leo looked somewhat embarrassed, while Raphael had the somewhat distant look in his eyes which proved that he had, indeed, been tuning most of the lecture out.

Both turtles bowed deeply, and Splinter returned to his meditation.

It lasted five minutes.

"Look, you might as well just admit I'm right. After all, it wouldn't be the first time. Remember last time?"

"How long are you going to bring that up? That was _one _time Raph. So I guess that makes the score two hundred to one."

"What fantasy world do you live in? Unless that's your score compared to mine."

"**ENOUGH!**"

Splinter fought to regain some of his formidable patience for his next sentence.

"Raphael, Leonardo, join me in the Dojo now."

The two boys silently entered, the one in red looking slightly more annoyed then the other.

"Sit down." When they did he continued: "My sons, you have been arguing for over a half an hour now. If this was an isolated incident I might ignore it, but you have been picking fights with each other all week. This behavior needs to stop." He sent an angry glare at his sons, and the guilty looks on their faces increased. "Firstly, you two need to acquire a better understanding of each other. There is an old metaphor that says if you can't stand someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Do you understand what this means?"

Raph grinned. "Yeah, then you'd be a mile away, and you'd have a new pair of shoes."

Leo glared at him. "We don't even wear shoes, Raph."

"Weren't you listening? He's being _metaphorical._"

"You don't even know what a metaphor is, Raph."

"What it _means _is that sometimes to understand each other, you have to feel what the other feels, and see what they see. So I want you to do a role reversal, Raphael, you be Leonardo, and Leonardo, you be Raphael."

Raph rolled his eyes. "That's easy. Raphael, go put in more practice sessions in the Dojo! I know you just spent half an hour in there with your punching bag, but that's not good enough! And you need to do it because I say so! I think I can boss you around just because I'm supposedly the oldest turtle, even though Donnie says we're all about the same age…"

"I'm Raphael! I'm haughty and rash! I think I can do whatever I want just to annoy Leonardo, but I'm not even able to keep myself from getting caught! I just take out all my stress on my punching bag and brothers! Maybe I'm so stressed 'cause I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna tell Sensei about the magazines under my bed…"

"Oh, you want to talk about anger? Well see how you feel after being nagged all the time by your supposedly _older _brother, even though by looking at us you'd think we were tw-"

"Alright, let's try something else. There is obviously much hostility between you two, so I want you two to think of four things you like about each other. Right now."

Silence.

After two minutes, Splinter broke the silence. "Do you have anything?"

"I'm not ready yet!"

"Me neither!"

Splinter waited patiently, figuring they'd have to come up with, if just to get out of here.

_Five minutes later…_

"My sons, I think you've had more then enough ti-"

"I'm still not ready!"

"Fine. Then just give me what you have."

Raphael spoke up first, and if Splinter had to pick one word to describe his face, it probably would have been somewhere along the lines of 'smart ass.' "Well, I like that Leo looks a lot like me, that makes it a lot easier to mock him when he says somethin' stupid, cause then he can't really say, 'that's not what I look like when I say that!' Though I suppose there's a downside, I can't really call him ugly very well…"

Despite his flippant, and frankly disrespectful response, Splinter found himself hard pressed not to smile. It was true, of course. Anyone looking at them would know they were related in an instant, but Leo and Raph weren't just siblings. They were twins, with Leo being born barely minutes ahead of Raph. Splinter had never mentioned it to them, but they seemed to know just the same, Raph had just admitted that they even looked like twins, and it wasn't the first comment he had made to that effect either.

Leo followed Raph's example and spoke as well, appearing thoughtful. "And I like that Raph comes up with creative excuses when he wants to do something. Like last week, when he told Mikey that he saw Elvis in the peanut butter and that eating it would be bad for his health."

"Oh, you wanna talk about health? Let's talk about _yer_ health for a minute."

"That's it! My sons, you are the most antagonistic pair I've ever known! You constantly pick fights and have nothing nice or polite to say to each other! If there is any hope for you two at all, you must find some common ground. Now."

"Well," Raph spoke up slowly, "We both like Bart Simpson."

"And we both like X-Men comics."

"Ya mean _Iron Man_ comics."

"Him too."

Splinter sighed. _I just had to pick up the four turtles in the coffee can… _"Is there anything that you have in common that does _not_ involve comics or movies?"

"… I've got nothing. How about you, Raph?"

"Well, we both think Mikey's a brat."

"True. That kid thinks he's all that sometimes…"

"… but he's not!" They finished at the same time. Arching a brow, Raph gave Leo an approving high three. Splinter groaned.

"So instead of tearing each other up…"

"…We should just go harass Mikey!"

"Thanks Sensei!" And the pair left the dojo before the latter could even bat an eye. He considered yelling at them to get their shells back in here, but the rapidly growing headache caused him to quickly dismiss that. Closing his eyes, he decided to give the two five minutes before he rescued Michelangelo. Leonardo and Raphael may not always get along, but when they did team up they were a force to be reckoned with. He sighed as Mikey's girlish scream echoed throughout the Lair and vowed that next time his sons had an argument; he would just stay out of it.

He _really_ needed to meditate.

…

**A/N: Am I the only one that thinks Leo might've been a little immature when he was a kid? We all know he's big and bad now, but he did start out as 'King of the Trash' right? Those of you who haven't seen 'The Lesson' probably won't find that very funny. Review, please :P**


End file.
